J's Pages

I've had this one on the shelf for a long, long time, but I haven't read it in a while. It's a collection of some of the strips from the first six years of the comic strip Doonesbury--1970 to 1975. It's been so long, it's kind of like I'm reading it for the first time. The first thing that struck me was echoes of Charles Schulz in the strips. If the early For Better or For Worse was Charlie Brown as an adult, these early Doonesbury strips could be Charlie Brown goes to college. But as I read further, my attention focused less on the art & the gags and more on the historical context. My knowledge of America in the 1960s and 70s has increased and I'm better equipped to appreciate the satire on changing mores, the Vietnam War, and the Nixon era than I was in my younger days. I came for the jokes but I think I'll keep it for the history. 

LibraryThing link

Labels: Doonesbury, GarryTrudeau, OnMyShelf

// posted by John @ 9:37 PM